Help support the next cohort of Science & Justice student researchers by giving through the Science & Justice campaign. Your donation goes directly to supporting students and providing opportunities for them to gain valuable professional development experiences working with scholars, researchers, mentors and community members on meaningful projects.

ABOUT the SJRC

Scientific and technological discoveries increasingly shape societies, which are simultaneously being roiled by rising inequality and injustice. The Science & Justice Research Center at UC Santa Cruz opens doors for dialogue across disciplines—scientists, engineers, social scientists, humanists, and artists—who actively, urgently seek a way forward—learn to work effectively with one another in order to affect positive social change within the context of scientific and technological discovery.

Our mission is distinctive. The center’s broad systemic emphasis goes well beyond conventional bioethics and consent. We’re reimagining how justice perspectives can reshape all aspects of the scientific enterprise—from funding and agenda setting, to relationships with the corporate sector, to reward structures and scientific hierarchies to the ways in which we respond to crisis and critique.

ABOUT the SJRC's SJTP

Our Science & Justice Training Program (SJTP) trains graduate student researchers to place a commitment to ethics and justice at the heart of science and technology.

Started in 2010 with a grant from the National Science Foundation, 2020 marked the ten year anniversary of the internationally-recognized Science & Justice Training Program. Now more than ever the training offered by the SJTP is critical to addressing some of today’s dynamic social and technical controversies: climate change, conservation and ecological restoration, health inequalities, algorithmic discrimination, neglected diseases, genetically modified rice, solar panels, militarization, drones, and RNA therapeutics, to name a few.

These are problems that are not the domain of one discipline or area of practice. They require working across fields and industries of knowledge, methods, and practice. The SJTP provides the space and transdisciplinary tools and thoughts needed for students—representing disciplines spanning campus divisions—to develop innovative research methods and learn real-life strategies for exploring how questions of science and knowledge intersect with questions of ethics and justice. As students collaborate with each other and our community partners to respond to core concerns of our times, these experiences have a powerful and enduring impact on the next generation of scientists and scholars, shaping future careers and research agendas.

As a Hispanic-Serving Research Institution, we’re engaging with an increasing number of young underrepresented scientists eager to integrate social justice challenges into their work.

Why Support the SJRC

Central to the success of our students is their ability to work on Science & Justice projects during the academic term and the summer. Science and Justice training has proved pivotal for many of our students, opening up doors to become sustainability and climate action managers, science and society policy fellows, interdisciplinary professors, and even the author of a children's book that explores themes of science and justice! With your help, we can offer fellowships that support this critical dimension of the training of future leaders in the emerging field of Science and Justice.

With your support we can:

• Support students in integrating social and environmental justice perspectives into scientific inquiry as they gain experience in critical cross-disciplinary collaborative projects and take these experiences into their professional lives.
• Bring scientists, activists, and other thought leaders to UC Santa Cruz to expand the range of research projects, teach and work with students, and enrich campus discussion.
• Support projects that connect community groups and agencies with the sophisticated science and data analytics capabilities of UCSC faculty and students, integrating a wider range of social perspectives into research models to address urgent local and national issues.

If you are considering a larger donation, a legacy gift such as an endowed chair, matching funds, or if you want to discuss your tax deductible gift, please email scijust@ucsc.edu. Together, we can determine how to best support Science and Justice research that is meaningful to you.

Thank you for making a more just world possible!